Six Hikes in Brooklyn, part I: Northwest

Dear Diary,

I have to thank the University Heights building's current owners for making me aware of Brooklyn, King County, Washington, a place much less documented than such contemporary villages I've previously mentioned as Ross and Latona.  Apparently the building was originally the school for Brooklyn village, which became part of Seattle in 1891 (not the 1881 the linked page claims).  However, according to Baist's Real Estate Atlas of Surveys of 1905, specifically plate 17, University Heights was an actual neighbourhood north of Brooklyn.  So I've decided to treat everything south of 45th St as Brooklyn, and everything north of it as University Heights.  None of this has anything to do with the place in Pacific County now known as Brooklyn.

The UW Libraries hosts a colourful, but not always comprehensible, account of the early years of the area.  In fact, much of the area thus defined as Brooklyn is now owned, and a somewhat different much of it is now used, by the University of Washington, but in the area this particular part covers, from I-5 to Roosevelt Way NE and from NE 42nd to 45th streets, there are only a few such buildings (two owned and used:  UW Medical Center Roosevelt; one not owned but not used:  Jack Straw Cultural Center; edit November 4th).  There are just as many open, more or less park-like, spaces, that is, three.  A map you'll see six times before we're done, dear Diary, this time coded for this part:

The six hikes were December 22nd, 2020, and five this month:  October 8th, 16th, 23rd, 25th and 29th.  Of those six, this part features photos from October 8th, 16th and 23rd.

A note on the buildings

As I've mentioned already today, the maps I've been using in talking about the parks between I-5 and 25th Ave NE, and between the water and NE 65th St, show university buildings as open to the public (bright blue) if it's literally possible for a random person to walk from the street into them.  For the buildings in this area, this criterion isn't misleading:  it's not only possible but acceptable to walk into the UWMC Roosevelt buildings (but NB state law still requires masks there), and it isn't possible, most of the time, to walk into Jack Straw, though I gather events sometimes change that.  (EDIT November 4th:  It isn't possible unless one pushes the button marked "Press button for entry".  Then it depends on who's there.)   That said, anyone looking for a public restroom in that neighbourhood should try the northern UWMC building, not the southern.

Or ideally wait.  I don't understand at all the idea, quite prevalent in the U-District, that public restrooms should be found in medical buildings, of all places.  Seems to me public restrooms are by definition dirty, and medical buildings by aspiration clean, and never the twain ought meet.  And it isn't that far from this area to public restrooms in less fraught places.  But someone who's really desperate in northwestern "Brooklyn" should probably head to that northern UWMC building.

Christie Park (A on map)

On October 8, I went here and took three photos meant to show that two water fountain bowls both worked, and one photo of the grassy area in the middle of the park, no longer fenced off:

On October 14, the water fountain was still running, and since drinking water hasn't been my problem on subsequent hikes of this area, I haven't been back.

East of I-5, area 8 (B on map)

The land east of I-5, south of the 45th St exit, and north of 42nd St, is all fenced off.  I think in some cases it's people's back yards, but only at the dead ends of 43rd St and of Pasadena Place can a passerby really look at any of it.  I took this photo October 16th at 43rd:

East of I-5, area 9 (C on map)

This is much like area 4 in University Heights:  south of a major road between an exit and the freeway, accessible thanks to tampering with the fence, but little inhabited, and mostly full of overgrown grass.  There are two major differences.  This time, instead of just opening a gate, a substantial part of the fence is torn down.  And this time, there's construction work of some kind going on at the north end of the area, visibly in an area where homeless people had been, with a different kind of fence around it.

More grassy, uneven land with occasional trees:

The fence:

(The orange netting visible in that photo is the fence around the construction area.)

Where the fence has been torn down:

The end the fence used to have, some feet back from the "Pedestrians prohibited" sign; I took care each time I visited to climb between the fence end and that sign.  This is the only photo in this part from October 23.

A note on other buildings

Between 42nd (further north than in the area this part is mostly about) and 45th, and between Roosevelt and 15th Ave, UW has, by one way of counting, thirteen buildings.  Maybe that unlucky number is why only one offers public restrooms, the UW Book Store.

All for now, dear Diary.  One more part is entirely about land the UW doesn't own; two are about a mix of UW- and non-UW-owned parks; and two are entirely about UW-owned parks.  I probably won't be writing any more parts tonight, so a happy night or nights, and however many days, until we meet again.

Buildings of the UW's Seattle Campus, part I: Preface

Dear Diary,

The University of Washington's Seattle campus includes over 200 buildings; the exact number depends on exactly what one considers a building.

Some minor basics

It's useful to know that the UW itself considers the Seattle campus to consist of four individual campuses:  Central, East, South and West.

I photographed most of the parks of West, South and East campuses in December 2020, when there were few people around.  Because I have these photos, and haven't seen much reason to add parks to the lists I made for those campuses then, I'm set to tell you, dear Diary, about them any time.  My preference, however, at this point, is to integrate them into the deluxe sets of hikes I started last year with three of the eleven regions into which I've divided North Seattle, and have continued this year by beginning two more regions.

West Campus is part of Brooklyn as I've defined it, a sixth of one of the regions I'm covering this autumn.  Central and South Campuses are another part of that region (slightly bigger than Brooklyn), but my photos of Central Campus parks were probably less comprehensive, and anyway were on the phone stolen in July 2020; I'm waiting for Thanksgiving weekend as the earliest realistic date I can re-take them, and if campus is too crowded then, may have to wait until late December again.  East Campus, meanwhile, is in a different region whose parks I don't expect to get to this year at all.

In most respects, UW is very consistent about this list of four campuses, but there's one exception:  the numbering of parking lots.  Parking lots in East, West and South Campuses have numbers like E1, S1 or W12.  However, parking lots in Central Campus have numbers like C1 or N5.  Central Campus has way too many parks to talk about in one page anyway, so I expect to divide it the same way.  I see most of the parks of north-Central Campus as fitting into two tiers, and most of those of central-Central Campus as fitting into three columns.  Since Central Campus also has by far the most buildings, I'll probably split it the same way in this page, too.

Many of the named roads of the UW can be and are driven, and have no separated pedestrian paths.  Few if any of the drivers drive fast, so it's hardly ever actually dangerous, but to be a pedestrian at the UW is for me, at least, a minor adrenaline rush.   Another detail about those roads:  Many are named for the counties of Washington.  (King County is one of the few not included.)  In West Campus, which I'm covering first, there are only three examples:  Pacific St, Cowlitz Road and Lincoln Way.  Corresponding to the fact that many of the roads can be driven, few are gravel, but gravel (and even dirt) paths aren't so rare as to be surprising, in campus parks in general and West Campus parks in particular.

Why I'm talking about the buildings

Anyway, why is a blog about parks a place to talk about over 200 buildings?  Because you aren't a blog about parks, you're a blog about running water, dear Diary, and buildings in general have that.  I've already written about at least that many library buildings, and near as I can tell, pages I write about libraries are reliably more popular than those about parks.

In addition, please remember that when, last year, I introduced you to Seattle Center, I noted that it has in common with the present UW Seattle campus that it was shaped by a major fair, and also that both places are strongly parklike places in Seattle that aren't run by Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation.  Seattle Center is city-owned, while UW is state-owned, but this remains true.

Well, one important way these differ is that Seattle Center, like Seattle's parks department, has drinking water fountains outdoors.  In addition, Seattle Center has a restroom building whose doors open to the outdoors, as do many Seattle parks.  UW's Seattle campus, however, has neither of these things, with one limited exception in the South Campus, restrooms whose doors open to the outdoors, but are locked with a code requirement. [1]

So the only ways to get water on UW's Seattle campus, in general, are to bring it in, or to rely on one or more building(s).

Since your real topic, dear Diary, has always been running water, then, the UW's buildings are on-topic for you.

[1] I haven't actually tried to open every door on every building on campus.  It's conceivable, I suppose, that some door I haven't tried opens onto restrooms.  But there's a certain amount of crowdsourced information about this.  During the lockdowns, many people asked me where restrooms could be found.  Surely at least some of these people had tried some doors.  In addition, before the pandemic, a friend of mine had a parking slot in the central garage, and mentioned often seeing human Number Two and Number One in that garage.  Although this problem peaked every time the football team had a home game, presumably at least some of the problem was thanks to homeless people.  En masse, homeless people are pretty reliable as testers of doors.  Ultimately, this goes back to a principle I enunciated already in your pages in 2020.  If a water fountain, say, is buried amidst blackberry bushes, it effectively doesn't exist.  Water fountains and restrooms only matter if they're findable.  And during the lockdowns, nobody could find either on UW's campus.

Public campus, private buildings

All of that said, many of the university's buildings are in one sense or another not open to the public.  Although the university is publicly owned, as we've already discussed, you and I, dear Diary, not all publicly owned buildings are or should be open to the public, and the university actually offers an excellent set of examples as to why that might be the case.  The university owns a cyclotron and a wind tunnel, just for starters.   It also owns a plethora of buildings people live in by virtue of various kinds of leases.  It owns several buildings devoted to child care or even primary or secondary education.  Many of its buildings are primarily places for its non-academic staff to do their jobs, including places like power plants (several) which aren't normally open to the public in the outside world even when publicly owned.  Also as in most places, its theatres, stadia, and so on - its entertainment facilities, essentially - are usually locked when not in use.

The inscrutable

However, this leaves many other buildings which may or may not be open to the public.  Particularly in the northwestern U-District, the area I've called University Heights, but also in northern Brooklyn, several of the buildings shown on its map are actually rented, and so the owner's policies, as well as the university's, are relevant.  Beyond that, however, I think the main problem is that the university's policies are inscrutable; I further think that this inscrutability is intentional.

Some of this may be due to sloppy thinking.  As I've focused on this topic for the past couple of weeks, I've concluded that there are at least four audiences for information about any specific university building's hours, four groups for which the university might, in an ideal world, wish to offer different hours.

1. People specifically linked to that building as employees - employees of the university who have offices there; members or employees of athletic teams about to play in the building; etc.  People of this kind often don't care about posted hours because they have keys or equivalent access.
   
2. People specifically linked to that building as customers - students who have classes there; spectators about to watch a dance performance in the building; actual customers of things like coffee shops; etc.  People of this kind often don't care about posted hours because they take for granted that what they're there for fits within those hours.
   
3. People "affiliated with" the university, as students, faculty, or staff.
4. The general public.

Many buildings' hours signage fails to acknowledge this fact.  Many others acknowledge it only in the negative - "Authorized personnel only", most obviously.  Here are the few I found that take the trouble to differentiate hours based on which audience is involved:

As a result, as a general rule, buildings' posted hours are not reliable guidance as to whether one can lawfully enter the building.  In addition, possibly as a sign of transition between an old hours regime and a new one, an increasing number of buildings have multiple hours signs.

Notice the wrong sign as one enters, and one can become a trespasser without knowing it.  This is especially problematic at buildings, such as the Communications Building and Savery Hall, where the different hours are posted at different doors.

(That said, here's what I'm finding:  At many of those buildings, I'm not yet sure about all, the shorter schedule governs the locks.  Separately, in general, I'm not finding students in buildings on days when those buildings are officially closed.  With a few notable exceptions, but fewer than I'd expected, door schedules seem to apply both to students in general and to the general public.  I am, however, seeing students in some buildings whose hours have been shortened, after the building's official hours are over.)

More problematically, buildings' posted policies are also not reliable guidance as to whether one may enter.  Plenty of locked buildings have signs saying, in essence, "Hi!  I'm locked."  Plenty of others don't.  Plenty of unlocked buildings also have signs saying, usually more weakly, "Hi!  I'm locked.", but are in fact physically open to the public.  (Gowen Hall, just above, is one of these, as seen in that photo.  It's where the Tateuchi East Asia Library is, so the whole idea of "authorized visitors", taken literally, suggests that being literate in Chinese makes one potentially dangerous to people at the university.)  And again, plenty of others don't.

At this point it's very easy to make an obvious objection to this line of thinking.  Maybe the university just can't afford to lock all its buildings.  Its main means of locking buildings that get a lot of visitors is with card readers, a fairly modern technology that its older buildings may be hard or expensive to retrofit with.  There's evidence for this view:  some doors advertise that they're specifically closed, I infer for lack of card readers:

This, however, ignores two issues.  One is that the university is still, as recently as during the pandemic, building doors without card readers.

The text shown in that photo also clarifies why the university keeps its hours and building policies inscrutable:  So that "persons creating disruptions and/or obstructive behavior" can be subjected to the sanctions for criminal trespass, which include but aren't limited to prosecution.

And who defines disruptive or obstructive behaviour?  Well, recently, dear Diary, I told you about the Husky Union Building's definitions, but in most cases, I'm pretty sure the definition is in the eye of the beholder.  Which leads to the second issue with that objection.  Another major way university building policies are enforced, besides card readers and much less expensive, is peer pressure.  Human beings affiliated with the university explaining to human beings not affiliated with the university that the latter aren't welcome in some building.

The only dorm I think has a locked door during day or evening hours is Haggett, which is empty, awaiting demolition and replacement.  In my surveys of campus buildings, I've visited every dorm and many of the apartment buildings.  Apartment buildings' doors I tried were locked, but I only tried a few.  I didn't try the doors of any dorm except Haggett, but saw in many cases that they were quite obviously unlocked.  Some have clearly posted policies I saw that say explicitly that people outside category 1 above aren't welcome, that the only people who belong there are the specific dorm's residents and staff.  I didn't see such signs at all the dorms; perhaps some are lacking them, but also, I made a point of spending as little time as I could around the dorms, precisely because, even without anyone saying anything to me, I was well aware that as a middle-aged man, I was already outside the pale even being near those dorms.  I expect that if I'd barged into one, even if no staffer intercepted me, I'd be subjected to howls of outrage and calls to the UW Police long before I found a restroom.

In actual fact, the one time I've entered Smith Hall, the only building on the (Liberal Arts) Quad posted as closed to the public (but not locked), I was escorted out by a denizen of that building almost immediately.  (I don't consider it coincidental that signs listing building hours at Smith Hall which I saw when I did my original surveys are now all torn down.)  At one time, I spent the earlier parts of the mornings of major holidays outside, near the Communications Building.  Now, that building has been officially closed to the public as long as I've known of it, but on those major holidays, people in it often opened a back door - actually propped it open - anyway, almost certainly for the benefit of those of us waiting outside, and I went in to use the restroom several times (and, at least once, to explore; see what I mean about crowdsourcing, dear Diary?).  About half of those times, UW Police showed up before I left the restroom, presumably summoned by someone in the building other than the one who'd propped the door open.  (According to that back door yesterday, Communications is supposed to be open, though not to the public, on holidays.  The front door, which memory claims did open on holidays, currently says nothing of the sort.)

Flipside, some days ago, by no means looking or smelling my best and carrying three satchels, I passed unchallenged through the Social Work Building, Founders Hall, PACCAR Hall, and Foster Library.

Different buildings have different cultures, but offending anyone, voluntarily or otherwise, at a building posted as closed to the public, is asking for trouble.

Arbiters of trouble

Two important audiences for the behaviour of visitors unaffiliated with the university are the UW Police and a security force that UW started deploying shortly before the pandemic.

The UW Police are, in my experience, the kinds of professionals one wants to deal with when one is in trouble.  They know their laws, they seem to play fair by them.  Pleading a misleading hours sign to a UW Police officer is quite likely to have a good outcome, as long as the sign actually exists and says what one thought it said.  Flipside, UW Police are much less likely to be sympathetic if one is in a building, like Gowen Hall, posted as officially not open to the public.  But even then, in my encounters with them in the Communications Building, they consistently waited for me to finish in the restroom, and I don't remember them ever threatening me outright with arrest.

On the other hand, the security people, who are not sworn officers and are not armed, have consistently struck me as not very professional.  Savery Hall used to be an important place for me.  My first encounters with UW security came when they started enforcing new, shorter, hours for Savery, before the pandemic, and before those hours were posted.  (Which they now are, though they seem to get torn down often.)  Security people didn't consistently notice that I was in the building.  But when they did, they insisted that I leave without any justification other than their say-so.  Later, during the pandemic, I spent a lot of time on a sheltered bench outside the Bank of America Executive Education Center (much of that time, writing you, dear Diary).  Security people at least thrice threatened to have the UW Police arrest me for vagrancy, on the grounds that someone in charge of that building didn't want me there.  This reliably ended embarrassingly for the security people, with the summoned police officer patiently explaining that vagrancy laws aren't enforceable and the UW campus is a public place.  But these incidents didn't make my life any easier.

My methods now

I can't write over 200 books of hours, or even for however many buildings have open doors at all.

So I'm using a four-step process.  

1. I've already listed everything on UW's map that I consider a building, grouped by location.
2. For each building, I've visited and summarised what's posted about access and hours.
3. For each building, I've visited during normal business hours (and specifically during posted hours, if any), and seen whether whatever I interpret as the front door opens when I try.
   
4. Whatever post-processing is needed.  This includes verifying UW ownership (significant for West Campus, trivial for Central and South Campuses, and I haven't yet checked for East Campus).  It also includes trying doors during stated hours on weekends and during evenings; so far this is done for Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday, but not for weekday evenings.
   

I'm not sure how soon I'll finish this work, but necessarily not today.  In the meantime, dear Diary, I wanted to write this so that what I say about the West Campus parks will make more sense.

That said, one important thing:  My park maps show UW buildings, like other public buildings, in blue (if open to the public) or, I think, teal (if not).  For the UW buildings, on the maps I'm using for the parks, blue merely indicates that the building is physically open (and not residential); it doesn't indicate that the public is welcome there.  In this page, the maps will be more complicated.

All for now, dear Diary.  I've finally got Brooklyn mapped, so expect to start writing about its parks today.  Happy hours until then.

Public Library Hours One Year Later

Dear Diary,

Tuesday night I got tired of trying to map Brooklyn (meaning the southwestern U-District) and decided to see how hard it would be to re-compile public library hours.

It turned out to be really easy because relatively few libraries have changed hours.  So I decided, after all, to update all the public libraries whose hours I'd covered in detail in April.

Previous pages

In case anyone starts reading this who isn't familiar with the situation, let me explain.  A year ago I wrote in you, dear Diary, a page that fairly rapidly became one of your most read pages.  It was about library hours at the Seattle Public Library and at several college and university libraries in Seattle.

Six months later, I attempted to survey all the libraries of western Washington.  I've learnt a lot along the way, so in September I updated some of these surveys.  They were built around my own modification of the classification used by my main source, the Washington State Library's database of Washington libraries.  They classify libraries as "Academic", "Governmental", "Public" or "Special".  I prefer "Academic", "Governmental", "Private, non-Academic" and "Public".  In other words, I classify libraries considered "special" by the profession of librarians as academic or governmental if they're owned by schools or units of government.  Anyway, none of the resulting pages has become one of your most popular, dear Diary.

In detail:

• "Library Hours in Month Twenty of the Lockdowns", October 2021
• "A Library Hours Update", November 2021
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part I:  Public libraries, introduction", April 2022.  Kinds of public libraries (municipal, funded from city budgets, versus district, funded by their own property taxes) and ways to get library cards, including reciprocity agreements.
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part II:  Public libraries, Seattle and nearby", April 2022.  Seattle Public Library and libraries that have reciprocity agreements with SPL.
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part III:  Public libraries, farther from Seattle", April 2022.  Libraries in western Washington that appear to offer cards to Washingtonians, including us in Seattle, without reciprocity agreements; and a list (without detailed hours coverage) of other public libraries in western Washington.
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part IV:  Public libraries' rules", April 2022.  Six rules that often entangle homeless people:  hygiene rules (don't be smelly), camping bans, sleeping bans, loitering bans, box rules (don't carry much stuff) and grooming bans (don't stop being smelly at the library).  After discussing each kind of rule in general, goes library by library through part II and the first half of part III, also attempting to establish the prevalence of homelessness in that library's service area, and looking at other relationships the library has with homelessness.
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part V:  Public libraries - errata, analysis, comments", April 2022.  The analysis and comments develop, with regard to the libraries in part II and the first half of part III, two arguments explained below.
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part VI:  Other local governmental libraries", April 2022.  City, tribal and county libraries.
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part VII:  Other governmental libraries", April 2022.  State and federal libraries, plus a couple of quasi-governmental ones.
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part VIII:  Private libraries with websites", April 2022
• "The Seattle Public Library's Summer 2022 Hours", July 2022
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part IX:  Private libraries without websites", August 2022
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part X:  The Ocean Shores Public Library and a Foolish Mortal", September 2022.  Added to, but did not update, the libraries in parts II and III.  (The Ocean Shores Public Library belongs in the list of other libraries in part III, which I'm not updating much here.)
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part XI:  Yet more governmental libraries", September 2022.  Updated the libraries in parts VI and VII as well as adding.
• "Library Hours Six Months Later, part XII:  Yet more private libraries", September 2022.  Updated the libraries in part VIII as well as adding.
• "Academic Library Hours One Year Later, part I:  Public universities", October 2022.  This notes that part V omitted one rule Seattle Public Library shares with the University of Washington, a neglected property ban (don't walk away from your stuff).  I imagine that the main purpose of neglected property bans is to insulate the libraries from lawsuits after thefts, but once they exist, libraries may enforce them without regard to the probability of a lawsuit.  (SPL, in general, issues verbal warnings when library staff notice the situation; UW used to have slips that employees would leave with the property, saying something like 'If I'd been a thief, your stuff would be gone', and probably still has those.)

The arguments from part V of "Six Months Later" that matter here are these:

1. Public libraries have not been restoring hours to pre-pandemic levels (or, in a few case, actually increasing them beyond pre-pandemic levels) evenly.  Agree with me, for the sake of this argument, that "morning" library hours run from opening to 3 P.M. on weekdays, "evening" hours from 3 P.M. to closing Mondays through Thursdays, and "weekend" hours from 3 P.M. Fridays to closing Sundays (if any).  Then it's actually pretty easy to show that libraries all over western Washington, and probably beyond, have raced to restore morning hours, jogged to restore weekend hours, and walked very slowly to restore evening hours.  Unsurprisingly, I see this as a Bad Thing.  Not because, as a once and possibly future homeless person, I want longer library hours in general - for those purposes, all library hours are equally good.  Partly because as someone who usually works first shift, I care more about evening and weekend hours when housed.  But mainly because primary and secondary schools, in my experience, typically let out around 3 P.M., and I want libraries to be available for their students to work on homework.

2. Libraries on "the wrong side of the tracks" tend to have the shortest schedules, and I, unsurprisingly, see this also as a Bad Thing.  In most of western Washington, I mean by this phrase branches on the Indian reservations, but in Seattle, I mean the NewHolly branch.

Seattle Public Library

The Seattle Public Library has outdone itself:  Its libraries now follow fifteen schedules, the highest number I've noticed.

Before the pandemic, SPL libraries followed four schedules.  1) The longest was for Seattle Central Library, 62 hours per week.  2) Half the branches followed the next-longest, which differed from Central Library by being open one hour less on Sundays, 61 hours per week.  3) Most of the remaining branches followed a very different schedule, open seven hours five days per week, five hours (like other branches) on Sundays, and closed on Fridays, 40 hours per week.  4) The last four branches were open seven hours six days a week, plus five hours on Sundays, 47 hours per week.

Now?  Let's look at libraries that started with the two longer schedules first.

1. Greenwood and Lake City branches are open 61 hours per week; they're at their full pre-pandemic schedules.
2. Ballard and Rainier Beach branches are open 59 hours; all they're short is that they close at 6 P.M. rather than 8 P.M. on Mondays.
3. Beacon Hill, Broadview and Northgate branches are open 57 hours.  They close at 6 on both Mondays and Tuesdays.
4. Northeast branch is open 57 hours.  It closes at 6 both Wednesdays and Thursdays.
5. Capitol Hill branch is open 55 hours.  It closes at 6 both Mondays and Tuesdays, but also opens at noon rather than 10 A.M. Wednesdays.
6. Douglass-Truth is open 55 hours.  It closes at 6 both Mondays and Tuesdays, but also opens at noon Thursdays.
7. Central Library is open 54 hours.  It closes at 6 Mondays through Thursdays.
8. Columbia branch is open 53 hours.  It opens at noon Mondays and Tuesdays, and closes at 6 Wednesdays and Thursdays.
9. Southwest branch is open 45 hours.  It closes at 6 Mondays and Tuesdays, opens at noon Wednesdays and Thursdays, and is closed Saturdays.
10. West Seattle branch is open 45 hours.  It closes at 6 Mondays and Tuesdays, opens at noon Wednesdays and Thursdays, and is closed Fridays.

As this suggests, the libraries with the shorter pre-pandemic schedules now have considerably less diverse schedules.  In fact, the majority already have their full pre-pandemic schedules back.

11. High Point, South Park and University branches are all back to the 47-hour schedule they had before the pandemic.
12. International District-Chinatown branch is open 42 hours.  It's closed Sundays.
13. Delridge, Fremont, Madrona-Sally Goldmark, Montlake and Wallingford branches are all back to the 40-hour schedule they had before the pandemic.
14. Queen Anne branch is open 35 hours.  It's closed Sundays.
15. Green Lake, Magnolia and NewHolly branches are open 33 hours.  They're closed Saturdays.

The wrong side of the tracks?

SPL has changed schedules three and a half times since I wrote in April:  in May (a big increase), July (a big decrease), August (increase for NewHolly only, not that that branch didn't need it) and October (a small increase).  Here's the net result:  They've increased morning hours from 483 in April to 501 in October, with the pre-pandemic number being 522.  They've decreased evening hours from 449 to 440, as against 488.  And they've decreased weekend hours from 366 to 351, as against 393.  So all those adjustments add up to six fewer hours per week.  In percentage terms, SPL is 92% back from the pandemic, but 96% in mornings, 90% in evenings, and 89% on weekends.

This sort of thing, doubling down on "Business hours first!", turns out to be usual among western Washington libraries which have changed their hours at all in the past six months, but I'm happy to report that Kitsap Regional Library, some Sno-Isles Libraries branches, and Bellingham Central Library have swum against the tide.

Meanwhile, SPL's "Rules of Conduct" have the equivalent of a last-modified date in 2015, and the rules I quoted in part V of "Six Months Later" and part I of "Academic Libraries" are all still there.

King County Library System

KCLS has the most branches in western Washington, so just from the time cost point of view, I'm selfishly relieved it didn't revise its schedule completely, only made a few changes.  The downtown Renton branch re-opened, but the Kent Panther Lake branch closed.  (The building was pretty new, but somehow a driver slammed into it, hitting a homeless man on the way.)  Bellevue and Kent Regional Libraries added hours, and in fact Kent is now the only KCLS branch open seven days per week (presumably because its neighbour is closed, but I'll take what I can get). [1]  The branch in Crossroads Mall in Bellevue also added hours.  And the branch on 320th St in Federal Way cut hours.

Despite the swap in closures, KCLS is now back to 65% of its pre-pandemic hours, as against 63% in April.  That's 72% of morning hours, 57% of evening, and 67% of weekend.

KCLS's "Patron Code of Conduct" has a last-modified date in 2017 and still includes what I quoted in "Six Months Later" part V.  It also includes "Leaving personal property unattended or with staff" as "Unsafe or Disruptive" conduct.

[1] KCLS's Redmond Ridge location keeps really long hours seven days a week, but, according to a librarian I reached at the Redmond branch by phone, doesn't offer restrooms.  Turns out I hadn't included it in my calculations in April, and I don't this time either.

Sno-Isles Libraries

The main library system of Snohomish and Island counties had branches that had already by April returned to their full pre-pandemic schedules:  Brier and Mariner had the same schedules then as before the pandemic.  Today, Brier has traded a morning hour for an evening hour, and Mariner has added four hours, two morning, two evening.  Langley had in April a schedule with two more morning hours than before the pandemic, and still has that schedule today.  Five other libraries were, in April, open as many hours as before the pandemic, but all were on earlier schedules, had traded evening hours for morning ones:  Camano Island, Clinton, Darrington, Lakewood/Smoky Point and Sultan.

SIL has since April considerably revised its schedules, mostly increasing hours, although if it made an announcement I can't find it.  (As a result, I don't know whether they think of the resulting schedule, with 98% of their pre-pandemic total hours, as more or less final; how on Earth they paid for it when few other library districts, wholly dependent on property taxes, are increasing hours; etc.  The most informative article I found, not very much so, was in the Mukilteo Beacon.)

As I looked over the spreadsheet I keep this information in, I was struck that different branches have used these increases very differently:  Some are digging deeper into the "Business hours first" model, while others have restored their pre-pandemic schedules, and three (Brier, Lakewood and Mariner) have actually increased evening hours.  Rather than bore you, dear Diary, with lots of words, here's a table:

Library	July 2019				October 2022
	Total	Morn	Eve	Wkend	Total	Morn	Eve	Wkend
Arlington	62	27	20	15	56	25	16	15
Brier	40	18	11	11	40	17	12	11
Camano Island	48	23	14	11	52	29	12	11
Clinton	40	18	11	11	40	20	9	11
Coupeville	56	25	16	15	58	30	12	16
Darrington	48	23	14	11	48	25	12	11
Edmonds	65	30	20	15	64	29	20	3
Freeland	56	25	16	15	58	30	12	16
Granite Falls	56	25	16	15	56	25	16	15
Lake Stevens	60	25	20	15	56	25	16	15
Lakewood/Smokey Point	40	18	11	11	48	25	12	11
Langley	48	23	14	11	50	25	14	11
Lynnwood	72	29	24	19	64	25	20	15
Mariner	48	23	14	11	52	25	16	11
Marysville	64	29	20	15	64	29	20	15
Mill Creek	64	29	20	15	60	25	20	15
Monroe	64	29	20	15	56	25	16	15
Mountlake Terrace	64	29	20	15	64	29	20	15
Mukilteo	64	29	20	15	64	29	20	15
Oak Harbor	64	29	20	15	64	29	20	15
Snohomish	64	29	20	15	64	29	20	15
Stanwood	60	25	20	15	58	29	14	15
Sultan	48	23	14	11	50	25	14	11
Total	1295	583	395	317	1274	608	363	303

Important caveat:  The Edmonds branch is mostly closed.  There's a "pop-up" inside the building whose hours I've used instead.  However, it doesn't include public restrooms; a librarian I reached by phone said they're sending people to the Frances Anderson Center nearby.  But that center is closed on weekends, so I've dinged SIL here and at the end of this page for its weekend hours.

SIL's "Customer Conduct Policy" has a last-modified date in 2020, still has the rules I quoted in April, and appears not to have a neglected property ban.

Kitsap Regional Library

The only public libraries in Kitsap County are the nine branches of KRL.  Before the pandemic, four of these branches were open 39 to 47 hours per week (39 was the Little Boston branch, on the Port Gamble S'Klallam Reservation).  In April these branches were open 38 or 41 hours per week, and they still are today.  The other five branches were open 53 or 54 hours per week (54 was Bainbridge Island).  In April, these branches were open 41 hours per week.  Now they're all open 46 hours, and the increase, at each branch, is four evening hours and one weekend hour.

KRL is now open 225 morning hours, up from 198 before the pandemic; 92 evening hours, down from 140; and 68 weekend hours, down from 100.  That's 88% of total hours, versus 83% in April; 114% of morning hours, 66% of evening hours (up from 51% in April), and 68% of weekend hours.

They also didn't release an announcement, although at least here I found where to look for one.

Their policies have a last-modified date of July 2022!   Let's see what's changed.  They've mildly modified a rule I commented on thus in April:

Something very like a loitering rule, without using the phrase:  "Patrons not engaged in reading, studying, research, meeting or using Library resources appropriately may be asked to leave the building."  And of course, the "appropriately" formulation also pretty much justifies enforcement against sleepers and groomers too, as at KCLS.

This now reads:  "Library patrons not engaged in reading, studying, research, meeting or using library resources may be asked to leave."  No more explicit sleeping or grooming ban has been added, although this formulation still provides librarians with some basis, perhaps enough basis, to act against sleepers and groomers.

I didn't note this in April:  "Overnight parking or camping on library property is prohibited."  This is in fact new, since a January 2022 capture at the Internet Archive, with last-modified date in February 2019, doesn't include it.

This is a more defensible version of a neglected property ban:  "Patrons may not store unattended belongings on the library premises".  SPL's neglected property rule has been applied to me (though only by verbal warnings) when I've gone to the restroom or to look at books; the use of "store" here implies that this rule is aimed at more prolonged absences, such as overnight.  A longer version of this was in the January 2022 capture.

The hygiene and box rules I quoted in April are still there.

Everett Public Library

EPL's hours haven't changed since April, its Rules of Conduct have a June 2014 last-modified date, and all the policies I quoted in April are still there, plus a neglected property ban:  "Leaving personal items unattended.  Unattended items are subject to confiscation."

Tacoma Public Library

TPL's hours haven't changed since April. However, this time I'm dinging TPL for still not allowing restroom usage at its Main Library, which is currently projected to be done with renovations in, um, 2024.

TPL now has a working policies page for the first time since 2016, and it includes the July 2015 rules of conduct I quoted in April (also featuring a neglected property ban:  "Leaving packages, backpacks, or any other personal items unattended."), as well as a May 2011 set specific to the restrooms.

Timberland Regional Library

This is the larger of the two multi-county library districts in western Washington, covering Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason, Pacific and Thurston counties.  (A few communities in Lewis County aren't part of it, and the Ocean Shores Public Library in Pacific County isn't either.)

TRL, like KCLS, has changed only a few libraries' hours.  The Shelton (Mason County) branch has re-opened to fewer hours than before it closed; the Ilwaco (Pacific County) branch has cut hours; the South Bend (Pacific County) has gone from being open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays to being open Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays (as a result, that branch is now open only during business hours).  And in Thurston County, the Olympia and West Olympia branches are differentiating themselves through their schedules.  Olympia used to open at 11 A.M. Mondays through Thursdays, closing at 8 P.M. the first two days, 7 P.M. the other two.  It now opens 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. six days per week.  Meanwhile, West Olympia, which opened only last year, was in April open at 11 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, closing at 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays.  It's now open 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Fridays through Sundays, the only Sunday hours TRL currently offers; no branch was open Sundays as of March 2, 2020 either.

TRL was open more hours than before the pandemic already in April, thanks to two new branches, and has extended that.  It is now open 622 morning hours per week, compared to 529 then; 263 evening hours, vs 305; and 283 weekend hours, vs 240.  On net, it's open 109% of pre-pandemic hours, 118% morning, 86% evening, 118% weekend.  This is slightly fewer than I reported in April, because at that time the Shelton branch was closed, but I reported based on the hours it had before it had closed; in reality, it's an increase since April, though not an increase since the closure.

TRL's Behavior Expectations Handout (1-page PDF) has a last modified date of August 2021, still includes the policies I quoted in April, and does not include a neglected property ban.

Pierce County Library System

PCLS's hours have changed for only two branches.  The Fife branch has subtracted two morning hours, and the Lakewood branch has been closed; PCLS says the building needs more repairs than it's worth, and is pushing for a new building.  I don't think this justifies updating the numbers I reported in April in words, but anyone interested may see the table later in this page.  I hope any new Lakewood building has better security, so as to foil the person (or maybe persons) who's stolen several older Korean TV dramas from the old building.

PCLS's "Library Rules of Conduct" have a last-modified date of October 2019, and do not include a neglected property ban.

Puyallup Public Library

PPL's hours have not changed.  Its "Code of Conduct" has a last-modified date of May 2018, and includes a neglected property ban:  "Leaving packages, backpacks, luggage, or any other personal items personally unattended (unattended items are subject to immediate confiscation)."  (Emphasis added.)  I guess it's a really bad idea to go to the bathroom in that building and leave anything behind.

Port Townsend Public Library

We're now into the libraries that say, at their websites, that they offer cards to most Washington residents, but don't have reciprocity deals with SPL.  (I wrote to all six in April, but none of the wording I quoted in part III of "Six Months Later" has been changed.)  All of the six libraries in this group, whose hours I discussed in part III, are farther from my house in North Seattle than at least the nearest branch of any of the libraries I'd discussed in part II.

(Of the libraries that do have reciprocity agreements with SPL, SIL and KRL both offer cards to most Washington residents anyway.)

PTPL has re-opened Mondays.

The City of Port Townsend's "Sharing the Space Policy" (2-page PDF) has no last-modified date; a related "Infographic" has in its URL a date of June 2019.  The policy includes a rule that resembles, but is much more defensible than, a box rule, but segues into a neglected property ban:  "Backpacks, bags, packages, or other personal belongings are allowed in the facility, but they must remain within the visitor’s personal space. They may not be so large or cumbersome that they interfere with other patrons and may not be left unattended at any time."

North Olympic Library System

NOLS, which has four branches in Clallam County, has taken to opening three of them an hour earlier, not just earlier than in April, but also earlier than before the pandemic, on Fridays and Saturdays.

NOLS's "Patron Rule of Conduct" (2-page PDF) has a last-modified date of March 2015.  It still includes all the rules I quoted in April, but I don't see a neglected property ban.

Central Skagit Library District / Sedro-Woolley Library

CSLD has simplified and expanded its schedule.  It had been opening at 9 A.M. Tuesdays through Saturdays, closing at 7 P.M. Tuesdays through Thursdays and at 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays.  It now opens at 10 A.M. and closes at 6 P.M. Mondays through Saturdays.

Its "Patron Code of Conduct" (2-page PDF) has no last-modified date, but the year 2020 is in its URL.  It still includes the rules I quoted in April, but not a neglected property ban.

Whatcom County Library System

WCLS hasn't changed its schedule since April.

Its "Disruptive Behavior" list (3-page PDF) has a last modified date in June 2018, and still includes everything I quoted.  It lacks a neglected property ban.

Bellingham Public Library

BPL has complicated and expanded its schedule.  Its Central Library had been open 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays through Saturdays.  It's now opening at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays and at 1 P.M. on Sundays, and closing at 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, and 5 P.M. Sundays.

BPL's "Rules of Conduct", with a last modified date of November 2018, still has all the things I quoted in April, and also, in a list of "Use ... for purposes not intended", "Leaving personal items unattended."

Camas Public Library

CPL, which had already re-attained its full pre-pandemic schedule in April, hasn't changed it since.

CPL's "Rules of Conduct" (1-page PDF) has a last-modified date of September 2018, and still reads as I quoted it, partially in full, in April; it didn't include a neglected property ban (or any of the other policies homeless people trip over) then and doesn't include one now.

Summing Up

Dear Diary, I'm a little tired of writing these pages.  My understanding of the Federal Reserve's recent moves is that they're trying to induce a recession not just in order to whip inflation, but also so that labour will return to its usual subservience to capital.  One side effect may be my renewed homelessness, but another may be expanded library hours, as libraries find it easier to staff shifts.  I want those expansions to go more evenly.  I'm not calling for libraries to return to their pre-pandemic hours because I think those hours should be cast in stone, but because I think a trend has been occuring, pushing library hours earlier, probably because of labour strength, and I fear new hours written now will obey that trend rather than reflect community preferences.  I don't want evening library hours to become a distant memory.

So I've already named names in this page, calling out individual branches of Sno-Isles Libraries.  Now I'm going to do the same thing on a broader scale.  Here are the fifteen libraries in this page, the percentages to which they've restored morning, evening and weekend hours, and the numbers of hours they're currently open.

Library or Library System	Percentages				Numbers
	Total	Morn	Eve	Wkend	Total	Morn	Eve	Wkend
King County Library System	65	72	57	67	1879	828	635	416
Seattle Public Library	92	96	90	89	1292	501	440	351
Sno-Isles Libraries	98	104	92	96	1274	608	363	303
Timberland Regional Library	109	118	86	118	1168	622	263	283
Pierce County Library System	81	100	54	93	794	401	202	191
Whatcom County Library System	101	108	92	102	444	199	144	101
Kitsap Regional Library	88	114	66	68	385	225	92	68
Tacoma Public Library	88	88	88	88	280	112	91	77
North Olympic Library System	98	106	84	103	196	103	59	34
Everett Public Library	95	100	89	93	108	50	32	26
Bellingham Public Library	93	100	100	78	104	47	28	29
Camas Public Library	100	100	100	100	54	25	18	11
Puyallup Public Library	104	108	94	111	53	27	16	10
Port Townsend Public Library	95	100	88	93	52	25	14	13
Central Skagit Library District	89	100	60	122	48	25	12	11
Over All	86	95	73	87	8131	3798	2409	1924

As you can see, dear Diary, although I may be exaggerating, I'm not just crying wolf.

Anyway.  I thought as I was working on this page that I was being a little hasty, that six months is too short a time to expect much, especially since most organisations budget on an annual basis, Seattle Public Library obviously a notable exception.  I'll try to update SPL's hours in April, although if they maintain their recent speed of changes, I may have to do so sooner.  But I hope to return to this topic more fully next October and find very different results, although if I do become homeless again, and my laptop is stolen, I may not be able to present them so easily.  Until then, dear Diary, I still have parks of North Seattle and downtown Seattle to work on, as well as academic libraries, so don't expect me to be silent for very long, but it may be a few days.  Happy nights and days until then.

Four or More Hikes in University Heights

Dear Diary,

Sorry it's a day later than I predicted.  It turns out I can't keep all the geography of I-5 in the U-District in my head at once; I went out twice yesterday and once today to look at it again.  Anyway.  This page concerns hikes on the 8th, 14th, 16th and 18th of this month, and the dozen places I think fit best here.  That's rather a lot, so let's get started.

We're going to need two maps for these places.  Here's the first, which shows most of them:

 

On the 8th, as with the other parts of this region of North Seattle, I wanted mainly to visit places owned, leased or otherwise controlled by the City of Seattle, according to the city's 2020 real property report.  (The main reason I don't use later reports is that they only inconsistently include leased property.)  I'd started with Ravenna, and then taken the Burke-Gilman Trail to the area south of University Heights, Brooklyn.  So this was the last area where I took photos that day, though I then unwisely returned to Ravenna chasing an SPU property that turned out to be a mirage.

University Neighborhood Service Center, take 1 (A on map)

I was a quarter hour too late to go inside this rented space, because I'd been looking for ball point pens at the University Bookstore a block south.

On the way to my next stop, I noticed an informational pillar.  It's good to know the U District Partnership is on the ball, keeping up with things timelier than I do:

University Heights Plaza (B on map)

Dear Diary, two and a half years into this, I think I've got the hang of this.  University Heights Plaza, a park owned by Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation, is a rectangle that's mostly a basketball court, right?

The King County parcel viewer seems to agree.  As I've previously mentioned to you, dear Diary, the "sanican"s and hand-washing station that had been in the plaza during the lockdowns are now gone, so this park is even less a part of my usual rounds than it had been then.  The street sink the cited page mentions isn't on the plaza, but on University Heights's private land, a little north of the P-patch.  Speaking of which...

University Heights P-Patch (C on map)

I think I'm obviously the wrong person to see what, if anything, is distinctive about particular P-patches.  This one at least doesn't have any stairs.

Fire Station 17 (D on map)

When I visited Fire Station 9 in Fremont last summer, I photographed a bunch of signage showing COVID-related closures of various kinds.  Not so here this time:

So my doubts about continuing to point the fire stations out are returning.  I'll have to think about that and let you know, dear Diary.

University branch Library (E on map)

From the downtown hikes of September, I've concluded that it's silly to keep taking restroom and water fountain photos inside buildings, since defects in these things are rarely tolerated for long, unlike in parks.  Also, people inside buildings seem much readier to take offense than people in parks at the use of a camera near restrooms.  However, the only photo I took here, this time, that wasn't a restroom or water fountain shot was a similarly boring door-signage one:

University Playground

The restrooms here have been closed since before the pandemic.  There's still a "sanican", without hand-washing station, in the park, but it's no longer at the back of the restroom building, instead near the northwest exit from the park.  The water fountain works fine.  Relevant photos from October 8th and several past visits are in the Google Drive folder.

I took a landscape shot, unsure whether I'd be back before the next encampment makes such a photo more difficult to take, given my rules:

It occurs to me, dear Diary, that I mostly don't have a clue who reads you any more, so should explain my rules for photo taking again, since they'll be relevant pretty soon.  I don't deliberately photograph people, originally because I didn't want to negotiate image rights while socially distanced, now mainly because I don't really want to negotiate them at all.  I take pains not to photograph homeless people's tents.  I bend these rules where necessary (e.g., photographing anything near Pike Place Market) as long as the people or tents are significantly distant, and even then strongly prefer that the people's faces aren't visible.

Anyway, the remaining stops from October 8 are on the other map, which we've seen before in the first part about hiking Ravenna:

Two snippets (F on second map)

Real property reports mention lots of "parcel"s and "snippet"s.  In previous cases, I've only intermittently been able to identify these.  My record is now a little bit better; I'm pretty sure these protrusions into 8th Ave NE are the two intended by 799 NE 56th St and 810 NE 55th St, 56th first:

I'd rather the report listed the reasonably attractive street circle at 8th Ave NE and NE 56th St:

but although that's pretty certainly city-owned, it isn't what's meant.

Shiga's Garden (G on second map)

Another P-patch:

As implied, that's it for the hike of October 8th in this area.  On October 14, I went to places suggested by Open Street Map, specifically two of them, plus I went back to the Neighborhood Service Center.  But first...

Notes on the land east of I-5 here

In the northwestern part of this region, there's little land east of I-5, as opposed to reasonably generous amounts west of it, enough for a park (NE 60th St Park) and a volunteer garden/orchard (Freeway Estates).  South of 53rd, that all changes, and down to 42nd or so, all the land worth mentioning is east of I-5.  This is partly, but I think not entirely, because of lots of entrances from and exits to the U-District.

The story of this land that I'm prepared to tell today and most likely tomorrow is a story of fences.  For whatever reason, much of the land is fenced in, or fairly recently was fenced in.  Much of the fenced land is steep, which argues that safety is the main concern, but I doubt that's all or even most of it, because much of the fenced land isn't steep, and there doesn't seem to be much correlation between steepness and fencing.  At least one substantial park housed people could plausibly enjoy would be possible near I-5 in the first area I'll discuss below.

Another element of the story:  Some of this land is currently inhabited.  In general, dear Diary, I haven't identified homeless people's use of the land since the previous mayor ramped up sweeps again sometime in 2021.  As I predicted in "Away from the Manger", the last part of my Christmas triptych last year, homeless people have metastasised throughout the city, no longer allowed to be anywhere in numbers, but still finding enough nooks and crannies in both public and private land to avoid (at least as far as I've seen) having to risk using residential porches.  However, in this case some of the land (south of the area this page covers) has recently been swept of holdover encampments; this suggests that the use of the rest (mostly also by holdover encampments) is known to the sweepers.  And I can't tell the story of the fences without talking about the ways in which they've been circumvented, which obviously suggests the land's homeless residents as the agents of circumvention (though hardly the only possible ones).

East of I-5, area 4 (H on first map)

The circumvention here, going south toward 47th St from 50th St, is simple.  The fence has a gate in it, not far south of 50th, and that gate has been open every time, in the over two weeks I've been hiking for these pages, I've gotten close enough to check.  (Mind, that's only been three or four times, but still.)  Near as I can tell, nothing was destroyed unless there was a padlock or some such on the gate.

There aren't many tents here, and it's easy to avoid them while hiking south much of the way to 47th in this substantial area.  It's mostly overgrown grass:

with occasional outcrops of thicker vegetation:

I can't see why these however-many acres have been abandoned like this.  Maybe because of the same sluggishness, on the part of the State of Washington Department of Transportation, that has exasperated the city's leaders because WSDOT hasn't gone all-out to sweep homeless people from its properties as the city has.  But if WSDOT is finally doing sweeps now, I have to wonder why it can't also do something positive at least with this space.

University Child Development School's playgrounds (I on first map)

Dear Diary, when I started writing you, I wondered what the U-District had done, that most of its playgrounds were locked.  There are at least three examples on the UW campus, there's the University Heights playground (on the first map above, but no photos), and then there are these.  Obviously private land owners, like U-Heights and UCDS, have the right to lock up their playgrounds, but where are the public ones that could make such locked private playgrounds irrelevant?  University Playground, whose restrooms haven't been open for years.  And in other neighbourhoods.  That's where.  What's wrong with the U-District having more and better?

Anyway, typical signage for the private playgrounds, emphasising private property:

University Neighborhood Service Center, take 2 (A on map)

On the afternoon of the 14th I managed to get inside this place.  I didn't get anywhere near the counter, there were so many people in line.  I noticed that the public use computer that had been on a desk in the front of this rented storefront was gone; some people were at that desk filling out forms.

This is meant to be a general place for residents of Seattle to deal with their government, and its signage still sort of reflects that.  But they've adopted a sideline that now more or less wags the dog.

From the things they were holding and the things they were saying, I'm pretty sure that all the people I saw in line, with maybe one or two exceptions, were there to get passports, which isn't even a city function.

Unable to reach the staff, I couldn't ask whether they offered a public restroom, but I'm pretty sure I remember their not having one when I visited while homeless a few times, and because where I stood while assessing the situation was near the storefront's back door, I could see signs warning the public away.

Since the 14th most of my hiking has been about loose ends and University of Washington buildings.  You already saw a few signs of the latter, dear Diary, in the third Ravenna page; the first map above has more; Brooklyn's map has tons, which is why I've left that area for last.  But for this region and Brooklyn, the main loose end has been that my record-keeping setup wasn't adequate to handle the land near I-5, so the rest of this page concerns those areas.  I went to these next two on the 16th.

East of I-5, area 5 (J on first map)

This area sandwiched between I-5, an entrance, and an exit, north of 45th St, is pretty seriously inaccessible, even though, as best I can tell, it isn't fenced at all.  I doubt it's inhabited.

East of I-5, area 6 (K on map)

As you can see in the above photo, dear Diary, and still more in this next one, this area, the accessible one north of 45th, is quite steep:

This area is thickly inhabited, so I didn't explore it much.  I think it's possible that the fence survives entirely.  That fence appears never to have enclosed the area shown in blue on the first map, but there are tents on both sides of the fence.  A door-sized gap in the fence along 45th St, where there may have been a door-sized gate, now stands empty; this is presumably how people in the western, fenced-in, tents get out.  Unlike University Heights Plaza, this encampment still has "sanican"s, and an SPU sink that I found running on the 16th, although I screwed up photographing that.

I think most of this area is steep enough that there probably isn't anything more worthwhile to be done with it than what's happening now.  I realise that for the haters of the homeless so common in city government that isn't enough reason to leave things as they are, but I hope whoever makes the decisions about this space continues to make sweeping it a low priority, maybe even contingent on treating the people living there as if they were actually people.

East of I-5, area 7 (L on map)

This area north of 50th St is another steep area, but differs from area 6 in that the hilltop is long, wide and relatively smooth, sort of flattish.  There are several places to climb to it; the further north one goes, the easier the climbs are.  Most of the tents are on or near the hilltop.

There are at least two fences.  One, a typical chain link fence, starts from the bridge and runs some distance along 50th, then turns north.  The other fence, which comes from the north, is made not of metal but of some stone, perhaps concrete.  The hilltop is between the two fences as they now exist.  I find it hard to believe homeless people have done anything to the stone fence, because its present endpoint looks orderly; I don't fully know what the state of the metal fence is, but certainly the two fences don't meet now, if they ever did.  The map above shows my best guess as to what areas WSDOT intended to fence.

Photographing this area was my main loose end for the 18th.  I'd been put off the first time by the density of tents and the difficulty of the climb I chose that time.  So first I photographed the hill side itself:

And then took two views of the other hill side, from the bridge, the first close-up, the second not:

Finally, dear Diary, maybe you've noticed the smaller "M" on the first map.  I went back out today to look specifically at that space between 7th Ave, an entrance and an exit, into which 47th St ends.  It isn't very big at all, but even so, there's a single line of fence running its length, probably to discourage people from trying to walk or drive across it and into traffic.

Well, dear Diary, that's it for now, and since I haven't even started the map for Brooklyn, probably it for today.  Happy hours until we meet again.